NEWSLETTER of the WEST END LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY WESTENDERWESTENDER NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2012 CHRISTMAS EDITION ( PUBLISHED SINCE 1999 ) VOLUME 8 NUMBER 8 TUDOR REVELS IN SOUTHAMPTON CHAIRMAN Neville Dickinson VICE-CHAIRMAN Bill White SECRETARY Lin Dowdell MINUTES SECRETARY Vera Dickinson TREASURER Peter Wallace MUSEUM CURATOR Nigel Wood PUBLICITY Ray Upson MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY Delphine Kinley RESEARCHER Pauline Berry WELHS... preserving our past for your future…. VISIT OUR WEBSITE! Website: www.westendlhs.hampshire.org.uk E-mail address: [email protected] West End Local History Society is sponsored by West End Local History Society & Westender is sponsored by EDITOR Nigel.G.Wood EDITORIAL AND PRODUCTION ADDRESS WEST END 40 Hatch Mead West End PARISH Southampton, Hants SO30 3NE COUNCIL Telephone: 023 8047 1886 E-mail: [email protected] WESTENDER - PAGE 2 - VOL 8 NO 8 GROWING UP IN WEST END DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR By Ray Upson I was at the tender age of 3 years old when the Second World War broke out. A little young to fully understand what was going on – I soon learnt! We were living in the white cottage just up from what is now Rostron Close in Chalk Hill. In those days it was attached to the Scaffolding (Great Britain) depot and an aunt and uncle lived next door and shared our pantry as a makeshift air raid shelter. This room had a door leading into the back yard. My first vivid memory was (I think) during the Blitz on Southampton. The most frightening incident was my father and uncle holding onto the door which was shaking from the blast of bombs. SGB strengthened one of their store rooms by using pit props to shore up the ceiling, so that the locals could use it as an air raid shelter. I remember one night my father was carrying me around to the SGB shelter when I saw clearly, in the beam of a searchlight, landmines coming down by parachute. They were landing over towards Bitterne and you could hear people screaming. Walking to school was often an adventure, watching Spitfire aircraft taking off from Eastleigh Airport and occasionally witnessing a ‘dog fight’ (by that I mean those that took place in the air by opposing aircraft). We also had a competition to see who could collect the most shrapnel on the way to school. Having the anti-aircraft gun site in Quob Lane, there was plenty of it about especially if there had been a recent raid. At school we had the occasional air raid practice when we donned our gas masks and went to the school air raid shelters. I remember getting into deep trouble on one of these practices. In my gas mask case I had my lunch NOT my gas mask! My brother and I were very lucky as our family had distant relations in the United States of America and once a month we received a parcel from them that contained items that were not available in this country. It contained such items as tins of exotic fruit, peanut butter etc.., best of all were ‘T-shirts’ for us boys and American comics and of course sweets and chewing gum. I always remember the old steam engines and steam lorries chugging up the hill past Hilldene School, there were lots of them due to the shortage of petrol. Also there were quite a number of buses powered by gas; the gas was produced by heating coal in a boiler that was towed behind the bus. The bus conductor not only had to collect the fares, but stoke the boiler as well! I remember coming out of Southampton on one of these buses and having to get off at the bottom of Lances Hill, walking up the hill and then boarding the bus again at the top, as the gas bus was not a very powerful machine. Our playground was the woods in Chalk Hill. In those days there were no houses above the row of old terraced cottages (the old brick-makers cottages which still exist today) until you got to the top. The beech trees formed a tunnel over the road making it very eerie at night. My brother and I often played there with June Barrett and Maureen Prince. Maureen lived with my other aunt and uncle further up the hill (Chalk Hill seemed to be full of Upson relatives) after she had been evacuated from Gosport. The game we often played was, guess what – wounded soldiers and nurses! We used to get days off from school to pick tomatoes on Lord Swaythlings estate (now Chartwell Green), women from the Land Army cracking the whip. I think the wages were 6 old pence a day. Army camps were springing up all around the area. The Wilderness being the main one in West End and of course the Balloon Barrage site on Barnsland. The convoys of tanks and army vehicles which used Church Hill seemed endless. I remember them laying a concrete road on Church Hill as the old road couldn’t take the strain of heavy traffic. They also built a Bailey bridge across the river at Mansbridge. My uncle next door and my father acquired an old shed which they buried in my uncles garden to use as an air-raid shelter. I was watching my father put the finishing touches to it when a German aircraft flew over at roof height – did I move quickly down into our new shelter! Eventually, the council built us a concrete air-raid shelter in our garden. The night I shall never forget is the night the Germans attempted to destroy Eastleigh Airport with V-1 Flying Bombs. They were horrific, very noisy, with a flame coming out of the rear – when the engine stopped down they came. They weren’t far short of their target, they all landed in the water meadows behind “The White Swan” pub. Continued on page 3 WESTENDER - PAGE 3 - VOL 8 NO 8 Continued from page 2 Next, the Americans arrived and my brother and I were often seen outside the “New Inn” pub quoting the old phrase ‘got any gum chum’. I remember once asking this question to a dark American soldier, he opened an emergency ration pack, inside which was what appeared to be a pack of processed dates – I loved them. ‘I’ll have some of that’ I said, he replied ‘are you sure?’. ‘Yes please’ I said. I took one bite and what a shock – it was chewing tobacco! Did he laugh, anyway, I got my chewing gum. The Americans were very good to us kids, they organised tea parties and entertainment in the garden of the ‘New Inn’. The worst thing about the war for us kids was the sweet rationing of 2oz. a week, mind you, everything else was rationed as well. I suppose looking at it we lived a very healthy diet, not much meat, butter or eggs, but plenty of fresh vegetables mostly home grown as most houses had large gardens. I remember our milk being delivered by Len Fray who then ran a small Dairy farm just down the road from ‘The Crown & Thistle’ (now renamed ‘The Master Builder’) in Swaythling Road. He delivered the milk on a bicycle similar to the one he have at the Museum. There was a milk churn in the carrier at the front with a collection of measuring jugs – so you went out with a jug to get your milk. I can see my old aunt now, skimming the cream off the top of the milk. Believe me it was ‘full, full’ cream milk we had then, straight from the cow. My aunt would pour the cream into a bottle and sit there shaking it all day to make a small knob of butter! The shortage of meat was not a serious problem, rabbit was often on the menu. Set a few snares and you were bound to catch one. No shortage of rabbits in those days. I seem to remember that when you needed a new tube of toothpaste, you couldn’t buy one unless you took the empty tube back – they must have been made with lead or something like that. And so came “D-Day”. The build-up was a sight to be seen. Convoy upon convoy of tanks, American D.U.K.W’s (Ducks) and lorries and rank upon rank of marching troops going up Church Hill. The sky seemed full of aircraft towing gilders. Then you had the follow-up of lorries loaded with ammunition parked in streets all over West End waiting to be transported to France. They were there for what seemed like weeks, if the German Luftwaffe had bombed West End during that period, there wouldn’t have been much of it left! Fortunately, the Germans had a very depleted airforce at that time. The allied soldiers slept in the cabs of their lorries. My mother supplied hot water for washing and shaving to the lorries parked outside our house, she also gave them breakfast. One morning we woke up and they were gone. One of my aunts husband was fighting in Burma. Just before Christmas of 1944 she received an invitation to go to ‘The Plaza’ cinema (which was situated on the Southampton side of Northam Bridge where Meridian TV used to be). The invitation was to see filmed messages from those fighting in Burma. My mother went with her and when my uncle came on the screen my aunt became very upset. She said to my mother ‘he’s been killed’.